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Float Valve

Types of Ball Valve

Duplex ball valve

There are five general body styles of ball valves: single body, three-piece body, split body, top entry, and welded. The difference is based on how the pieces of the valve—especially the casing that contains the ball itself are manufactured and assembled. The valve operation is the same in each case.

In addition, there are different styles related to the bore of the ball mechanism itself.

Ball valves in sizes up to 2 inch generally come in single piece, two or three piece designs. One piece ball valves are almost always reduced bore, are relatively inexpensive and generally are throw-away. Two piece ball valves are generally slightly reduced (or standard) bore, they can be either throw-away or repairable. The 3 piece design allows for the center part of the valve containing the ball, stem & seats to be easily removed from the pipeline. This facilitates efficient cleaning of deposited sediments, replacement of seats and gland packings, polishing out of small scratches on the ball, all this without removing the pipes from the valve body. The design concept of a three piece valve is for it to be repairable.

Full port

A full port or more commonly known full bore ball valve has an over-sized ball so that the hole in the ball is the same size as the pipeline resulting in lower friction loss. Flow is unrestricted but the valve is larger and more expensive so this is only used where free flow is required, for example in pipelines which require pigging.

Reduced port

In Reduced port (more commonly known as reduced bore) ball valves, flow through the valve is one pipe size smaller than the valve's pipe size resulting in flow area being smaller than pipe. As the flow discharge remains constant and is equal to area of flow times velocity, the velocity increases with reduced area of flow.

V port

A V port ball valve has either a 'v' shaped ball or a 'v' shaped seat. This allows the orifice to be opened and closed in a more controlled manner with a closer to linear flow characteristic. When the valve is in the closed position and opening is commenced the small end of the 'v' is opened first allowing stable flow control during this stage. This type of design requires a generally more robust construction due to higher velocities of the fluids, which might damage a standard valve. These can be referred to as a type of control valve but are not as accurate as a balancing valve, needle valve, globe valve, or pressure regulating valve.

Cavity filler

Many industries encounter problem with residues in the ball valve. Where the fluid is meant for human consumption, residues may also be health hazard, and when where the fluid changes from time to time contamination of one fluid with another may occur. Residues arise because in the half open position of the ball valve a gap is created between the ball bore and the body in which fluid can be trapped. To avoid the fluid getting into this cavity, the cavity has to be plugged, which can be done by extending the seats in such a manner that it is always in contact with the ball. This type of ball valve is known as Cavity Filler Ball Valve.

There are a few types of ball valves lateral movement of the ball:

Trunnion

A trunnion ball valve has additional mechanical anchoring of the ball at the top and the bottom, suitable for larger and higher pressure valves (say, above 10 cm and 40 bars).

A floating ball valve is one where the ball is not held in place by a trunnion. In normal operation, this will cause the ball to float downstream slightly. This causes the seating mechanism to compress under the ball pressing against it. Furthermore, in some types, in the event of some force causing the seat mechanism to dissipate (such as extreme heat from fire outside the valve), the ball will float all the way to metal body which is designed to seal against the ball providing a somewhat failsafe design.

Manually operated ball valves can be closed quickly and thus there is a danger of water hammer. Some ball valves are equipped with an actuator that may be pneumatically, hydraulically or motor operated. These valves can be used either for on/off or flow control. A pneumatic flow control valve is also equipped with a positioner which transforms the control signal into actuator position and valve opening accordingly.

Multiport

Three- and four-way have an L- or T-shaped hole through the middle. The different combinations of flow are shown in the figure. It is easy to see that a T valve can connect any pair of ports, or all three, together, but the 45 degree position which might disconnect all three leaves no margin for error. The L valve can connect the center port to either side port, or disconnect all three, but it cannot connect the side ports together.

Multi-port ball valves with 4 ways, or more, are also commercially available, the inlet way often being orthogonal to the plane of the outlets. For special applications, such as driving air-powered motors from forward to reverse, the operation is performed by rotating a single lever four-way valve. The 4-way ball valve has two L-shaped ports in the ball that do not interconnect, sometimes referred to as an "×" port.

A ball valve is a form of quarter-turn valve which uses a hollow, perforated and pivoting ball (called a "floating ball") to control flow through it. It is open when the ball's hole is in line with the flow and closed when it is pivoted 90-degrees by the valve handle. The handle lies flat in alignment with the flow when open, and is perpendicular to it when closed, making for easy visual confirmation of the valve's status.

Ball valves are durable, performing well after many cycles, and reliable, closing securely even after long periods of disuse. These qualities make them an excellent choice for shutoff applications, where they are often preferred to gates and globe valves, but they lack their fine control in throttling applications.

The ball valve's ease ofoperation, repair, and versatility lend it to extensive industrial use, supporting pressures up to 1000 bar andtemperatures up to 752°F (500°C), depending on design and materials used. Sizes typically range from 0.2 to 48 inches (0.5 cm to 121 cm). Valve bodies are made of metal, plastic, or metal with a ceramic; floating balls are often chrome plated for durability.

Ball valves can be used in a variety of applications and markets, such as transmission and storage, gas processing, industrial, and many more. Ball Valves provide reliable leak protection which is especially beneficial in gas applications. Ball valves have low pressure drop and can open and close quickly.

Chemical and Petrochemical Complexex

Low Differential Pressure Control

Emission Control

Handle Highly Viscous Fluids. Abrasive Slurries or Corrosive as well as non-corrosives in processes and Storing Facilities

Power Industry

Boiler Feed Water Control

Control abd Shot-off for Steam

Burner Trip Valves

Sluicing Valves for Feding Coal into Pressurised Combustore and for extracting fly ash

Gas and Oil Production

Subsea Isolation and Shut-down

Well-Head Isolation

Piping Suege Control

Secondary and Enhanced Oil Recovery

Processing Separration

Transmission and Distribution

Storage Tang

Pulp and paper Industry

Pulp Mill Diagesters

Shut-off Valves

Batch-Digester Blow Service

Liquor Fill and Circulation

Lime Mud (Slrry) Flow Contro

Dilution Water Control

Other Common area for the application of ball valves include: Food Industry. Water supply and transport, Marine and soilds transport.

Micro-resistance Ball Valve uses the rubber covered roller as the disc, which, under the action of the medium, can roll up and down along with the sliding path inside the valve so as to open or close it. And it features by the big flow, small flow-resistance loss, good tightness, silent close and reduced water shock wave. It can be mountable vertically or horizontally and used on the outlet of the water pump of the cold-water, hot-water, industrial and living sludge pipe networks to prevent the medium from going back.

Types of Float Valves / Ballcock Valve

Different types of ballcock/float valves are available in market based on fitting orientation,use,working principle,size etc.

Horizontal and Vertical float Valves

Vertical Float Valve

Here the float is oriented and moves in vertical direction as shown in figure. The float is directly or indirectly act on the valve seat for closing and opening the valve. The force of buoyancy is directly acting on the seating area. The buoyancy force should be higher than the effective force due to inlet pressure for fully closing requirement of valve, So the float size is depends on the inlet pipe pressure,the more the inlet pressure higher the float size required. Vertical float valves are most suited in deep tanks/sumps where the horizontal spacing is limited mainly in industrial application like oil and chemical industry tanks for automatic shut off/filling operation.

Horizontal Float Valve

Horizontal float valve is works based on the principle of force of buoyancy and principle of lever and fulcrum. As shown in figure below. Float arm acts as a lever and pivoted on body act as a fulcrum. The buoyancy force exerted on the float is transferred to the valve seating by the lever which gives more effective force on valve seating, so the more lengthier the float arm, smaller the required float size.

Introduction to Float Valve / Ballcock Valve

Ballcock valve is used to maintain fluid level in a storage tank or a sump. Ballcock Valves are also known as Float Valve or Ball Tap. As the name indicate it consists of a ball shaped float which sense the current level of the fluid and actuate the valve to open or close depending on the fluid level.

As shown in below figure a hollow air filled cylindrical, spherical, oblong or similarly shaped container called 'float' made metal or polymer connected to a piston operated valve using a long lever called float arm. The float am can be a flat rectangular or cylindrical in cross section. The valve used in a ballcock valve is a flow isolator valve can be of a piston operated or a diaphragm operated valve and the actuator mechanism use the float position to open and close the valve to fill the tank.

Application of Float Valve

Water Supply

Float valves are widely used in water supply system to automatically fill the tank or sump from a main storage tank. It can employ directly in by installing directly inside the tank/sump or by using as remote sensing valve for the main valve.

Household

All toilet flush tanks are employed with float valve for filling the tank after each flush.

Industrial

Float valves are widely used in oil,chemical,petrochemical factories for automatic filling of liquid tanks.